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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27310327">Strength to Strength</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImAGiraffacorn/pseuds/ImAGiraffacorn'>ImAGiraffacorn</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Mechtober 2020 [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Once Upon a Time (In Space) - The Mechanisms (Album), The Mechanisms (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Emotional Hurt, Gen, Mechtober, Mechtober 2020, Once Upon A Time (In Space), i get sad about snow and cinders so now you will too, secret meetings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 20:27:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>782</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27310327</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImAGiraffacorn/pseuds/ImAGiraffacorn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Snow and Cinders saw each other exactly twice a year. No more. No less.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Snow | General White &amp; Cinders (Once Upon A Time In Space)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Mechtober 2020 [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1988512</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Strength to Strength</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Final push! Last three are all coming today!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Snow and Cinders saw each other exactly twice a year. No more. No less.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The two soldiers never told another soul about these interactions. They were already endangering so much by even acknowledging the other’s presence, no matter how subtly. The risk of traitors and spies was too high to warrant any more communication than necessary. These rendezvous were some of the most carefully planned operations either of them made. The plans and logistics to make them happen were kept under total lock and key, with only their most trusted advisors being made even slightly aware that anything out of the ordinary was happening. And even then, identities were never revealed. It was too dangerous.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>The first was Rose and Snow’s birthday.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the past, it had been a day of celebration. Rose had always managed to finagle leave time and Snow had always worked it out with her superiors to have the day off. In all their lives, they had never celebrated apart. No matter how little they saw each other, they never missed their birthday. They were twins, after all. If they couldn’t see each other one day a year, what were they even doing?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now, it was a non-event. Snow and Cinders would meet in a pub, but never the same one twice. The place was always rebel-friendly or in rebel-controlled territory. Both would disguise as foot soldiers on leave or gone AWOL. It was never hard to fake the tired and resigned eyes, the heavy feet dragging with each step. More than once, one of them had shown up in a sling or a cast.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They would sit next to each other at the bar. Snow would order whatever was strongest. Cinders would order whatever was most expensive. They wouldn’t talk. They wouldn’t look at each other or smile or even so much as bump shoulders. They would sit and drink, and order a few more rounds. They would pay for their drinks, thank the bartender, and walk out, but never together. They would always stagger by a few minutes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At some point, Snow would slip a note into Cinders’s pocket. In the decades on decades of this silent tradition, Cinders could never figure out exactly when during the evening Snow would give her the note, but it was always there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sometimes it was logistical figures for supply caravans. Sometimes it was troop counts and data. Sometimes it was lists of locations where the king’s forces looked to be setting up secret operations. Once, it had merely been a note from Snow, a few sentimental words scrawled out in pencil, burned seconds after they were read.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Always, it was a way for Cinders to know that Snow was still alive.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>The second was what would have been Cinders and Rose’s anniversary. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>This meeting was far less clandestine, and yet somehow just as secretive. The day was a rebel holiday after all, and as such, General White and the Princess of Fire always found themselves at the same party. Party was a generous term for the hours of political and military threats, bartering, and general chaos, but there were usually multiple types of fancy alcohol, so party seemed a fitting enough word.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>These parties were painful for the two of them. As the decades ran on, they began to let their familiarity as almost-family to bleed through in their interactions, but for the first few years, they could not allow themselves to know the other. Snow had been declared dead, Cinders had been declared dead, and both of their new identities were wanted traitors with the two highest rewards on their head in the history of the king’s reign, To acknowledge each other as friends risked both their identities and their standing as leaders.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This didn’t change the fact that this was the only time they could speak to each other. In codes so convoluted, references so vague, body language so indecipherable as to be meaningless, they used their unknown history to say more than any of the other political chess matches being played around them could ever hope to equal. While words about victories and loss and strategies flew through the air into the waiting ears of their allies and subordinates and the spies they all knew were there but weren’t positive who, entire books were conveyed with a single look, a sip of champagne, a derisive snort.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And at the end of the night they would go their separate ways. They wouldn’t say goodbye, for there were battles to fight the next day and they couldn’t afford to be distracted. Anything else that needed to be said would have to wait.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They would see each other again.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I have this tragically lovely image of Cinders just completely obliterating the king’s forces with obscene amounts of fire any chance she gets. None of the Rose Reds actually know who the Princess of Fire is, but they all know the stories of her violent rage. None who have met her have survived.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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